Women’s clothing sector suffers in February

Retail sales in the women’s clothing segment remained sluggish in February, according to new figures.

The Retail Sales Monitor, published by the British Retail Consortium and KPMG, noted that heavy rains in the South of the UK benefitted online sales, to the detriment of the high street.

Excluding online sales, clothing sales would have declined in February, it said.

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Overall retail sales rose 0.7% over the month, but were down 1% on a like-for-like basis.

“Our sales figures for February show a slower pace of growth in the retail industry than in previous months, underlining that the consumer-led recovery is still developing,” said BRC director general Helen Dickinson.

“However, this slower growth might have been expected in some ways, given the record sales figures we saw in January and the strong results that we are comparing against from last year. If they were taken together, the figures from the last three months show a 2.8% average growth in the retail industry, a modest increase on the 12 month average.”

Online sales of non-food products in the UK grew 14.3% in February versus a year earlier. The online penetration rate achieved 17.5% in February.